by Sandra Hill
She raised her eyes in surprise. “It tastes a bit like anise. Definitely tart, but not unpleasant.”
“Like you.”
“Me? Ah, you mean tart. That I am…when provoked.”
He smiled, pleased that she agreed with his assessment, she supposed.
After replacing the spoon, he turned back to her. “You have honey on your lip. Right there.” He dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a forefinger.
Ingrith forgot to breathe. How could the mere touch of a finger cause her to be so…so unsettled? It was like last night when he had licked her fingertips. Unsettling.
Then she did something so out of character that it shocked her even more than it did him. When he was about to withdraw his forefinger, she grabbed his wrist and held him in place while she drew the appendage into her mouth. And sucked.
For the love of Frigg! She was sucking on a man’s fingertip, and it had naught to do with honey.
Her throat went dry and strange emotions swirled through her body as she glanced upward and saw the raw lust in the rogue’s slumberous blue eyes.
“Ingrith,” he whispered.
At the same time, she whispered, “John.”
All thought fled when his hand snaked out and he yanked her forward to stand between his outspread thighs as he still sat on the high stool. He fingered the edges of her hair, then gripped her face with both hands before settling his lips over hers. “This is such a bad idea,” he said thickly.
“Definitely a bad idea,” she agreed…and wrapped her arms about his shoulders.
Oh, the pure bliss! Who knew…who knew a kiss could be so…mind melting? And he was equally affected. She could tell because there was a part of his body pressing against her that was anything but melting.
“Breathe, Ingrith,” he urged, smiling against her mouth.
She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. With a choked laugh, she exhaled into his mouth, which was devouring her with hungry kisses. This gave him the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth and begin a sensual in-and-out assault that caused her breasts to ache and dampness to pool in her intimate parts.
Now, Loncaster had stuck his tongue nigh down her throat, too, and it had been repulsive. What John was doing was just the opposite. Exciting, that’s what it was.
So engaged was she in returning John’s kiss that it was only belatedly that she realized that he’d stood and reversed their positions so that she sat on the stool with her thighs spread under her gunna, and he stood pressed against the female heart of her. The hardness of the ridge in his braies was caressing some extra-sensitive part of her nether region.
She whimpered. And slid her rump closer to the edge of the stool.
Even through the layers of his and her clothing, it felt as if his instrument was coaxing a response from her. A chord of sublime ecstasy was rippling from that spot outward and vibrating, like the strings on a harp.
When the kissing and pressing of his hips was accompanied by his fingers stroking her breasts under her apron, she arched her neck back and her breasts forward and let out a wail of keening, “Aaaaaahhhhh!” Her body was overtaken by the most overwhelming spasms of a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.
After several long moments, shaking still with wave after wave of fading sensation, she reeled. With her face nestled in the crook of his neck, she sighed and tasted his salty skin.
Only then did sanity return.
What have I done?
“What did you do to me?” she demanded, shoving him away and jumping off the stool. Her hair had half fallen out of its braid. Her apron had been shoved aside and her gunna rucked up above her knees.
“What did I do?” While she attempted to straighten herself out, he laughed and pointed to a damp spot on the crotch of his braies.
“I did that?” she asked, horrified.
“Nay, you caused me to do that. I have not peaked in my breeches since I was an untried boyling.”
It took a moment for her to understand. When she did, she put her hot face in her hands. “I am so embarrassed. Ne’er have I done such before. Was there something in the honey you fed me?”
“I wish! If there were, I could sell it for gold in any market in the world.”
“You did, you rat, you put something in that honey to seduce me,” she accused.
“Are you seduced?” The lazy smile he cast her way was almost her undoing. Again.
“Nay, my breasts ache and my nether region weeps all the time,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could garner. “Lackwit!”
His eyes widened. “Your coarseness knows no bounds, m’lady. I love it!”
“You are laughing at me.”
“I am laughing at us.”
“What would your mistress think?”
“Joanna again! Did I mention spanking afore?”
“Do not think I will be jumping in your bed furs now.”
She could tell that possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Until now. “I cannot recall the last time any woman jumped in my bed furs.”
She threw her arms out in disgust. “It is hopeless trying to talk to you.” When she exited the honey shed, she almost ran over Ubbi.
“M’lady, did the troll release his bees on you?”
“Huh? Nay. Why do you ask?”
“Because your lips are bee stung.”
She put her fingertips to her kiss-swollen lips. ’Twas true…her lips did burn in the aftermath of his torrid possession.
What next?
Next was that something else caught Ubbi’s attention. He was staring over her shoulder. She turned to see John leaning against the open doorway.
“Looks like the troll got bee stung, too,” Ubbi remarked.
“Oh, In-griiith,” John called out to her when she was halfway back to the keep, “best you caution Bolthor, or you may find yourself the subject of his nightly poem.”
“He would not!” she exclaimed, peering back at him over her shoulder.
John just shrugged, but he had an evil grin on his too-handsome face.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They were certainly lippy today…
Gossip traveled in any castle like dust on the wind.
Leastways, that’s the excuse he gave Ingrith for all the whispered remarks as they passed by on the way to yet another feast that evening. There was no way he could tell her that she looked like a wanton who had just crawled out of a libertine’s bed, him being the libertine.
“I swear, Ingrith, half the fish in the lake must be lying in repose on these tables tonight.” He shook his head with mock dismay. “The other half are racing to the open seas to escape your culinary passions.”
And, yea, he was wondering if Ingrith’s passions would extend to love play. After seeing her naked—and then having her suck on his finger, for the love of God—he was entertaining some interesting private fantasies.
Instead of being insulted, she joked back. “I hear the pigs have bolted as well. And there is not a red deer to be found within many miles of Hawk’s Lair.”
“What is that green slop?” he asked, pointing to a bowl of liquidy mush. “It resembles what is often deposited in a baby’s nappies.”
She smacked his arm. “’Tis Green Soup. Spinach with leeks, eggs, cream, and various spices.”
“I hate spinach.”
“I thought you hated cabbage.”
“Spinach and cabbage.”
She shook her head at him as if he were a hopeless case. “Tomorrow I am going to make you nettle soup.”
“Oh, that is just wonderful! Why not just feed me nails?”
“You will love it.”
“I doubt that.”
“Shhh! Have an open mind. The nettles are not prickly once cooked, and they are quite delicious when combined with all my other ingredients. What do you think of boar testicles?”
He choked on the sip of mead he’d just taken. Clearing his throat, he said, “I think they are hairy buggers. Why?”
He arched his brows.
“For cooking. Fried in onion butter, they are delicious. Better yet, in a beer batter.”
John’s mouth dropped open, but he was saved from having to comment because Bolthor stood and bowed toward them. John didn’t even try to subdue the skald tonight. Ingrith seemed to have given up the fight, as well.
Honey is a lot like a woman.
A pain in the arse to obtain.
Sweetness it does bring,
but is it worth the sting?
Mayhap ’tis just a rite of spring
When there are other kinds of stings,
The ones that love play brings.
The bite of a kiss
Can surely bring bliss.
The pleasurable bite
Of foresport the long night.
Next time you see a swollen lip.
Do not blame the poor bees’ nip.
More like it is a lover’s prick.
Everyone in the hall turned to stare at him and Ingrith.
He just winked and bowed in acknowledgement.
Ingrith elbowed him in the side.
Hamr stood and applauded vigorously.
Ingrith elbowed Hamr, too.
“When is he leaving?” she muttered to John.
“Bolthor or Hamr?”
“Both of them.”
He shrugged. “No doubt about the same time you depart.”
She licked her lips with nervousness.
Which of course reminded him of other licking.
Good Lord! He had been in a half cockstand all day just thinking about the witch. It amazed him that, when he’d met Ingrith on previous occasions, he had not noticed her allure. He must have been blind.
“Are you a virgin?” he asked suddenly.
She turned, very slowly, to stare at him directly.
He assumed by the iciness of her regard that she was still a maiden.
“That question was inappropriate.”
“I don’t mean offense. Truly I do not.”
“Is it because of my age? Is that why you ask?”
He shook his head. “I am perplexed that you are not married because you are so very sensual.”
She gasped. “A wanton! You think I am a wanton just because—”
“Shhh! Sensual is a good thing. In fact, every man wishes that his lady wife would have a hidden wantonness.”
“But I am not married.”
“Exactly.”
She bared her teeth at him, which only called his attention to her lips.
“Your lips are kiss swollen. Do they hurt?”
“Nay. Do yours?” she snapped back, no doubt hoping to embarrass him.
Not a chance of that! “Just a little, but it is a good pain, if you get my meaning.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“What is wrong with you, John? You are supposed to be all serious and brooding, interested only in your honey studies.”
“You happened.”
“Oh, that is just perfect. Blame it on me. Mayhap you need to go visit your mistress.”
“I swear if you mention my mistress one more time, I am going to put you over my knee and paddle your heart-shaped arse.”
That turned her speechless, but only for a moment.
But wait. There had been a momentary lapse in conversation, and it appeared that everyone had heard John’s words.
He turned to Ingrith, who was glowering at him.
“You want to hit me, don’t you?”
“I want to do more than that,” she said. “Did I ever tell you how my sisters and I killed a man?”
She was probably jesting.
I can’t believe he said THAT…
Two things happened the next day that added to the chaos at Hawk’s Lair.
1. Bolthor’s family arrived. His wife, Katherine, and five children, ranging in ages from four to fifteen. John was going to have a falling-over fit.
2. Accompanying Katherine and her entourage was a messenger with ominous missives from Lady Eadyth. John was going to be livid.
While his men were doing military exercises in the outer bailey, John had taken to his bee fields. To study and harvest some of the combs, he’d said. She suspected he just wanted to escape the keep…and her.
But escape was not in the cards for him, because Henry and some of the other children had begged to go with him, and he’d grudgingly agreed.
“Kin I get my very own honeycomb?” Henry wanted to know.
“I wanna see the bees rutting up in the air,” Kavil added, recalling John’s previous words.
“Kin I pick some flowers?” Breaca asked, already dragging a large basket with her.
“How do you set up a new beehive?” Godwyn asked. “Me father once tol’ me, afore he died, that ya have ta smoke ’em out.”
John listened to each of the requests and nodded, albeit reluctantly. You had to love a man whose heart softened to children. Not that she loved John. And besides, he was most often a grumpy bones about the children. This was just an exception, in her opinion.
But then, he’d even allowed Ubbi to tag along, despite Ubbi having said, “I will keep an eye on the troll for you, m’lady.”
John had gotten the last word in when he’d cautioned the little man, “Keep on bothering me, gnome, and I will plop your tiny arse on top of a hive. You’ll not be able to sit for a sennight.”
Even Bolthor and Hamr accompanied John, to his chagrin. “This is turning into a bloody party,” John had complained.
“Oh, good!” Hamr had said. “Mayhap Ingrith can prepare a basket of food for us. Bread, cheese, fruit, leftover boar, oatcakes. Just a few things.”
Ingrith had given him a not-amused glare.
“And several jars of mead,” Bolthor had added.
Thus, Ingrith was alone when Katherine’s group arrived in two wagons with several lone riders.
“I am Katherine of Wickshire Manor,” the grim-faced woman said, introducing herself, motioning for her children to gather behind her. Ingrith could see that they were anxious to be let loose.
Katherine had seen at least forty winters, if a day. She had ample flesh about her middle and silver threads amongst her black hair, but she was still an attractive woman.
“Lady Katherine,” Ingrith acknowledged, and was about to introduce herself when Lady Katherine blurted out, “Are you the lady of Hawk’s Lair? I did not realize that Hawk had married.”
“Oh, good Asgard, nay! I am Ingrith of Stoneheim, in the Norselands. I am just…visiting.”
“I met your father, King Thorvald, one time in Sussex. That means…you are a princess?”
Ingrith nodded.
“Well, Princess Ingrith, where is the lout?” a grim-faced Katherine asked.
“Which lout?”
“You know of many hereabouts?”
“Several.”
“I refer to my husband, Bolthor. Didst know that the lackwit wrote a poem about my bosoms?”
“Hey, he wrote one about my behind.”
Katherine’s eyes went wide, and then she burst out laughing. “I like you.”
“Your husband is a very nice man. My father said that he was a fierce warrior at one time, a soldier he would welcome at his back any day.”
“Yea, he is a good man,” Katherine agreed. “I berated him for writing that bloody poem, but I ne’er intended for him to go away. And certainly not for two sennights. The man is twelve years older than I, but I swear betimes he acts like a boyling.”
“Well, he is out in the bee fields with Lord Hawk at the moment, but I think they will be back soon. I know that he and Hamr intended to ride to Jorvik this afternoon.”
“Hah! He’ll be going nowhere when I get a hold on him,” Katherine said, entering the great hall beside Ingrith. Then she softened her words with a wink.
It was then that Ingrith noticed the messenger in Ravenshire livery. He carried letters for both her and John. After Katherine went off wi
th the steward to settle in two sleep bowers, Ingrith took her missive outside to the herb garden where there was a bench on which to sit.
My dearest Ingrith,
I hope all is well with you at Hawk’s Lair.
Commander Loncaster was here today, looking for the boy. And you. From here, he was going to your sister’s home at Hawkshire.
If you are able to get to Jorvik without detection, Eirik will provide a longship to take you and your charges to your father’s home in the Norselands.
Otherwise, I would suggest that you pretend an attachment to my son as a discouragement to Loncaster’s suit.
And, above all, hide Henry as best you can.
God be with you.
Eadyth of Ravenshire
An attachment to John? Holy Thor! John would fall over laughing. He had already made it more than clear he would never wed…or have children. Besides, compared to his other women…if the beautiful Joanna was an indication…Ingrith was not even in the competition.
Even worse, she suspected that Lady Eadyth had suggested the same to John in the missive addressed to him. She was tempted to destroy it, but only for a moment. Her perfidy did not stretch that far.